I call in the boy

                          Have him sit on his knees here

                                           To seal this,

                          And send it a thousand miles, thinking.



It was the middle of summer halfway through my miserable Goth phase and try as I might skin darkened, makeup ran with sweat. Everyday seamed a challenge: maintaining an aesthetic, avoiding a beating, applying eye shadow in school bathrooms. I found one in an outbuilding and would change there every morning: makeup, attitude and the day would begin in earnest. I dream about it sometimes I'm climbing the stairs to class with a knot growing in my stomach.



It happened at the end of year disco. I left home with my clothes in a bag to get changed later. In the mirror I looked fragile, my skin florescent in the darkness I got dressed quickly. I had a long black velvet dress bought in Glasgow I had been too shy to look through the women's clothes

Can I help you

We looked through the dresses together and she picked out a few for me to try: a short black seaqend one, one in pvc that I couldn't zip up, a full length black silk evening dress and the one I chose. At each change my confidence grew so that by the fourth I threw back the curtain and strode out with my hands on my hips, walked to the centre of the shop and cast a glance over my shoulder. I felt sexy. Wow, she said, and we both started laughing. I was shaving my legs when I realised I was being watched

I didn't mean to stare--I'll

It's ok, I'm nearly finished. I smiled

I recognised his voice though he stood in the shadows. David. I'd seen him standing around at break trying to look like he wasn't alone looking at everything the tiles on the floor, the store where they kept desks stacked on top of each other (I'd photographed it a few weeks before blowing up the image and exposing it three times to break the pattern.) He had been out of school for two weeks the term before and had come back with scars on the back of his wrists.

I dried my legs and ran my hands down their new smooth surface because he was watching me. I had painted my nails, but used too much polish so they distorted and rutched like the curtains in my parent's living room. He came closer

Do you want to feel them

He touched them and was about to withdraw his hand

Not like that

I moved his hand over the skin

What do you think. He didn't respond and when I reached up and touched his cheek it was wet


I think I kissed him. I don't remember and we where both clumsy and awkward neither of us knowing what to do we stumbled around like children. Outside, I took off his shirt and he had knife marks snaking up his arms